Let it be known that 2011 was the year that shooters attempted to take down Call of Duty. One major player this year is the vaunted Battlefield 3, while a relative unknown is also attempting to take down Activision's juggernaut series. That company is longtime player THQ, and they teamed up with Kaos Studios, makers of only one previous game: 2008's Frontlines: Fuel of War for the Xbox 360 and PC. That game was...mediocre at best. Has Kaos learned some lessons and put together an elite shooter in Homefront, one that can take down CoD?



At first, the answer seems like it could be an emphatic yes. The big selling point behind Homefront is that it has a good piece of speculative fiction, penned by the master of such, John Milius. This is the same guy that wrote two classics of the war movie genre, Apocalypse Now and Red Dawn.

The year is 2027, and the North Koreans have actually become a world power, unifying the peninsula, conquering Japan, and now taking over a weakened United States. The land of the free and home of the brave, in the preceding years to the game, was ravaged by a rise in oil prices, so much so that gas hits $20 a gallon (due to a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran), not to mention a wave of bird flu also kills millions. The Greater Korean Republic seizes this opportunity, irradiating the Mississippi River and using an EMP blast to kill all power in the States.

You play as a helicopter pilot living in Montrose, Colorado, when he is suddenly accosted by the KPA forces. The introduction to the game is meant to not only tug at your heartstrings, but also enrage you enough to want to take on the KPA all by yourself. It is also an effective framing device for the story, which takes you from the streets of Montrose all the way to San Francisco.



There are some moments that will chill you to the bone, like seeing people executed on the street, and a mother begging her child to not look as they are also gunned down. As chilling as the visage of Korean occupation is, at times it felt downright cartoony with how the bad guys were portrayed, so much so that I started to think, “Am I fighting a unified Korea, or am I fighting the Combine from Half-Life 2?”

As shocking and refreshing as it is to actually have a setting and a framed narrative for a first-person shooter, it's a damn shame that the game does absolutely nothing with it. The story itself is nothing more than an excuse to go and shoot Koreans, and Kaos Studios has also created a world that is--upon further research--implausible at best, ridiculous at worst. This is also the second game (of two) that Kaos has used dependence on oil as a plot device. Get off your pedestal, Kaos Studios. These are video games you make, the average gamer will not care about your political views.

Picking apart the inaccuracies and ripping Kaos for their grandstanding is best left to a different article (one that a particularly observant Destructoid user has already done), so I'll focus on another part of the story: the “my country 'tis of thee” jingoism that was way too prevalent when I played this game. I can understand the reasoning behind it, but give me a break, Red Dawn wasn't overtly patriotic like this, and neither was Apocalypse Now. What I did like was a maybe-not-so-subtle nod to Red Dawn in the second level, where there is a banner that says “Go Wolverines!”

The single-player campaign is just far too short, clocking in at just over four hours in my playthrough. I never complete games in one day, yet I did with Homefront. This continues a disturbing trend I've seen in video games: games that are pathetically short, claiming “the multiplayer will save it.” Even worse is that the game ends extremely abruptly, basically setting up a sequel, which almost every game does these days, and it's a massive disappointment. It ends in much the same way that Red Dawn did, but it didn't have the same feel that the movie did. There is no closure, no sense of accomplishment, it just...ends with THQ saying, “Ha-ha! Homefront 2 coming out, suckers! Give us your sixty bucks!”

As for the game itself...it does absolutely nothing to reinvent the wheel. Now this is not exactly a bad thing because if there's one thing gamers are afraid of these days, it's trying new things (buh-ZING!). If you've played ANY Call of Duty game before Homefront, then you'll be right at home with the controls. You just won't be familiar with the apparent lack of speed this game has. It runs at 30 frames per second instead of 60, which might not agree with some gamers. This is a minor complaint, but the framerate does have a tendency to chug when the action gets a bit too busy. However, it doesn't happen enough to really make it worth complaining about. The graphics are nothing special, either. A big problem I saw with the game, though, is that there is a LOT of texture pop-in. Either it gets better as the game goes on, or I just got so used to it that I stopped noticing it. I haven't seen pop-in like this since the first Assassin's Creed.



The only complaint I have about the gameplay is what I stated earlier: it's more or less a copy-paste of Call of Duty, right down to the pathetically short campaign.

Something that is worth complaining about however, is the outright DESPICABLE use of in-game advertising. Most people have dismissed it as “enhancing the feel that you're fighting on your home turf.” This cannot go unpunished because if there's one thing people hate in games, it's advertising. If anything, it draws you OUT of the experience, and this game is relentless. I've seen White Castle, Hooters, most of a level takes place in a Tiger Direct outlet store, and I even saw an ad—in the multiplayer no less—for Lumber Liquidators. I have never seen a more blatant use of in-game advertising, and it's sickening, to say the least.

The real draw of the game is its' multiplayer, though, so I'm more or less forced to take a look at it. The best way to describe it is a mix of Battlefield and Call of Duty. The player count goes up to 32 players, which is fairly impressive for a console shooter, and there are some other aspects that make the game a bit different than your garden-variety shooter. One of the best ideas comes in the form of Battle Points, which are almost like in-round perks. Getting kills or assists, capturing objectives and the like will net you Battle Points, which you can use to buy vehicles, assist items, and other stuff in the middle of the round.

However, Kaos drops the ball once again in a fairly elementary area: game modes. Out of the box, there are only two: Ground Control and Team Deathmatch. Ground Control is basically your standard Battlefield-type mode, and Team Deathmatch is just what it is. It's also the only mode anyone cares about (another article for another day), so you'll have a much quicker time finding a match there than with Ground Control. Again, just a vanilla multiplayer mode to go along with a vanilla campaign.



What is unique are the “Battle Commander” modes, which feel like Team Deathmatch with Halo Reach's Headhunter mode thrown in. As you rack up kills and get on a streak, you are marked with stars, making you an inviting target to kill. However, you skills do not go unrewarded, as you get faster, stronger and more aware of what's going on. It really does feel like a Pro Mode of sorts.

Something else to note is the “Battle Code” that THQ packs with every copy of the game. Similar to EA's Online Pass system, you need that code to get the full multiplayer experience. However, even if you don't, they were kind enough to let you play all the maps, but you can only go as high as level 5, limiting your unlockables severely, including the Battle Commander modes.

Homefront is the prototypical rental. The four-hour campaign and how it ends is a massive disappointment, and while the multiplayer can be pretty fun, this game is almost as bad, if not worse, than Call of Duty: Black Ops. I don't despise Homefront as much as Black Ops, but this is yet another generic shooter that brings nothing new to the table aside from a squandered setting. This game is NOT worth $60, and even if you do buy it used, THQ makes you buy that dumb $10 code to get everything out of the multiplayer.

Final Score: 5.5/10